Praise:

Tomaz Salamun, whose work has been translated by many fine American poets, including Anselm Hollo, is quite dazzling. The long poem that opens this collection is sheer condensed delight, cross-hatched with near-familiar American sound and metaphorically rich Slovenian. Salamun is one of ours, that is to say, a four-star trans-cultural carrier!

— Andrei Codrescu

[E]legantly laid out, striking cover designs, understated yet attractive fonts, concrete links between visual style and verbal content: all hinting at Tomaz Salamun's background as a conceptual artist. And much of his work is pictorial: relying as often on metaphor and imagery as on the staccato declarative tone which often characterises his work.

— Poetry Wales

Aside from being wonderful poetry – the translations by University of Washington Slavic and East European studies librarian Michael Biggins have tremendous energy and ease – the book gives immediate and fascinating insight (and hindsight) into the paradoxes of the cold war writer's life in the East.

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Salamun's poetry is not so much a response to particular experiences, so matter how socially transgressive they may be, but is experience itself.

— Kevin Hart, Verse

[T]his unexpected collection by a Czech [sic] small press destroys previous notions about Salamun and should win every translation prize available.

— The Bloomsbury Review

Quiet yet also strangely exuberant, Salamun's lyrics are invigorated with the dissonance of outburst and metaphysical reflection, fusing public utterance and interior meditation in a way rarely seen in a poetic culture so consumed by a now-hackneyed "post-Postmodernism."

— Ethan Paquin, Boston Review

Like Dostoevsky, for whom consciousness was disease and salvation, Salamun celebrates art as both punishment and transcendence. Poetic vision assaults whoever would escape vital living . . . Imagining Salamun's wives and lovers, male and female, Ballad conflates and celebrates unrestricted art and love.

— Michele Levy, World Literature Today

What a strange turn of events that a poet who hails from a country of only two million and writes in a language that very few Americans understand should have such a profound impact on American poetry. But it is the case that Tomaz Salamun is one of the most influential voices now speaking to younger American poets.

— Christopher Merrill